


Peace is purchased in the currency of loss

by seraphim_grace



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2408030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mission Steve removes his armour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peace is purchased in the currency of loss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keire_ke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/gifts).



_“Peace is purchased in the currency of loss.”_   
**"Glen Duncan, I, Lucifer"**

 

 

Captain America returns to the Avenger's tower in full uniform, he even wears his helmet and many times he pulls it off as soon as the fighting gets intense so it doesn't limit his field of vision.

He's tired in a way that his body can't keep up with, although it tries. The super serum is expanding his capillaries, bringing more and more oxygen into his muscles, making them stronger, faster, but he still feels heavy, like he's pulled himself from a pool of water.

He goes straight to the gym downstairs, wondering if he can work the anger from his muscles, the tiredness from his bones and the exhaustion from his hair. He strips down to his underwear, underarmour because the person who did his requisitions thought it was funny, until he stands there just in black cotton jersey and sweat and dust and whatever grime is on his skin and he starts to punch the bag.

The others don't understand, no, he corrects himself, Banner understands, the others can't.

They are their alter egos in a way Steve can never be, he goes home hangs up his shield and he becomes Steve, Captain America-in-waiting. He's lost track of which one of them is the mask. Natasha has only ever been the widow, Tony is Iron Man because he thinks it better than being himself, and Thor is exactly the same no matter what he faces - he stares into it with a sense of childish wonder and the simple question - do i fight it or fuck it?

Punch, punch, kick, dodge. The muscles know what they're doing even when the mind just wants to lie down and die.

Kick, kick, roundhouse jump back. Is it possible for an enemy combatant to look sad? he wonders.

He did, Steve thinks. These are the luxury thoughts the shield does not allow him. He looked sad.

Punch, punch, uppercut, punch. He could accept it if it was Bucky's choice. He didn't like it but he could accept it.

So why does he look sad?

There was sweat prickling along the back of his neck and his knuckles, leaving wet marks on the kevlar-nomex weave they use on these bags so they last a little longer, but he couldn't stop. He didnt' want to stop. He didn't want him to look so sad.

Kick, Punch, left, right, dodge. His feet were wet, leaving smears on the floor where it was harder to get a grip. He should shower, he should, but he had looked so sad.

It's been months and he can't get over that one detail, how, although his eyes were blank and dead, his hair lank and unkempt, that he still looked sad.

The sob takes him unawares, until he's leaning against the bag, arms wrapped around it and sobbing.

But when he's done he will shower, he will send his armour, lying on the floor by the bench, for laundering. He will polish his shield to make sure the blood and gun shot residue is gone, maybe even touch up the paint if it needs it. He will pull on his khakis and white tee, a uniform as much as his armour ever was, and he will go upstairs, and smeared into the sweat and tears on a kevlar-nomex punching bag will be the memory of a young man who should be dead, who fell because Steve wasn't quick enough to save him, who fell from grace as much as from the train, and how the end of the line was a railway bridge, and how he has been resurrected, and how, no matter what he does or says - looks sad.


End file.
